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Liberals and Tories deadlocked in Ontario election support, poll says

Heading into next week’s crucial televised leaders’ debate, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives are locked in a dead heat, according to a new poll.

Kathleen Wynne's Liberals have slipped slightly in support over the past week, according to a new poll. On Tuesday, she visited the kids at St. Julia Billiart Catholic Elementary School in Markham.
(Richard J. Brennan / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

“Those two parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives) each need four points to get to 40 (per cent). Either one of them at 40 is probably going to get a majority,” Bozinoff said of the June 12 election.

“Their only big event now is the debate,” he said of Tuesday’s 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. broadcast on CBC, CTV, CHCH, CPAC, Global, Sun News Network, and TVOntario and moderated by TVO’s Steve Paikin.

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Using interactive voice-response phone calls, Forum surveyed 882 people across Ontario on Tuesday and results are considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Bozinoff noted the Conservatives are up since last week’s poll likely because Hudak has said attrition would account for many of 100,000 positions he will cut from the 1.1-million-person public service.

“The Tories are helping themselves a little bit. They had this 100,000-job-loss shock — it wasn’t well explained when it first came out,” he said of the poll, which was conducted before the PCs’ claims about creating 1 million private-sector jobs over eight years were disputed by leading economists.

Last week, the Liberals led with 41 per cent to 34 per cent for the Conservatives, 20 per cent for New Democrats, and 4 per cent for the Greens.

When Bozinoff extrapolated this week’s results, he projected the Grits, who traditionally narrowly win urban ridings, would take 50 seats in 107-member legislature to 42 for the Conservatives, who tend to pile up huge pluralities in rural constituencies, and 15 for the NDP.

At dissolution, the minority Liberals held 48 seats, including Speaker Dave Levac, the Tories had 37, the NDP 21, and there was one vacancy.

A key change in the current survey is the Greens being up from 4 per cent last week to 7 per cent in Tuesday’s poll.

The pollster said he suspects the apparent Green surge may be due to respondents “parking their vote.”

“That could be four points up for grabs and — let’s face it — it’s not going to the Tories. It’s either going to the Liberals or the New Democrats,” said Bozinoff.

In the 2011 election the Grits finished with 37.7 per cent to 35.4 per cent for the Tories, 22.7 per cent for the NDP, and 2.9 per cent for the Greens.

With the race so close, Wynne on Wednesday left open the door to combining forces with Horwath to keep Hudak out of the premier’s office.

“I am not ruling out anything . . . I have demonstrated how I can work in a minority parliament,” she said at St. Julia Billiart Catholic Elementary School in Markham.

The Conservatives worry that even if Hudak wins the most seats in the legislature — but falls short of a 54-MPP majority — Wynne and Horwath would gang up on him.

That happened in 1985 when then Liberal leader David Peterson and then NDP leader Bob Rae toppled Tory premier Frank Miller, who won more seats than his rivals though the Grits took a greater popular vote percentage.

Horwath, whose third-place party propped up the minority Liberals in the 2012 and 2013 budgets, refused to say if she would back Wynne or Hudak.

The NDP leader dodged the question when asked if the party leader who wins the most seats should automatically be premier.

“We’ll deal with that outcome when it’s upon us. We can’t presuppose or prejudge what the electorate is going to do. I’m going to hold my powder,” she said at the International Bakery in the riding of York West.

In terms of personal approval, Forum found Wynne and Horwath were tied at 34 per cent each while Hudak was at 27 per cent.

The poll is weighted statistically by age, region, and other variables to ensure the sample reflects the actual population according to the latest census data. The weighting formula has been shared with the Star and raw polling results are housed at the University of Toronto’s political science department’s data library.

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